Stakeholder meetings set in Duval superintendent search

A second sub-committee, meanwhile, prioritized the issues the outgoing and incoming superintendents should focus on.

Board Chairwoman Betty Burney and board member Tommy Hazouri finalized the list of about 40 potential participants from throughout the community and school system who are being invited to serve on the envisioning committee.

“We want a broad group,” Burney said.

Those being invited include, but are not limited to, representatives from the mayor, City Council, chamber of commerce, the Duval Legislative Delegation, NAACP Education Committee, Community Foundation, military affairs, high school students, retired teachers association, school employee unions, PTA, United Way, District Advisory Council, Save Duval Schools, the local college presidents, and leaders in the Hispanic community.

That committee will meet from 6-8 p.m. on April 9 and 16 and May 14. Each session will be held at the Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership, 4019 Boulevard Center Drive. Those meetings will be streamed live online, Burney said.

Although the dates haven’t been set, the board also will collect input from district staff after the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

There will be separate meetings for teachers, principals, academic administrators and operational administrators, she said.

Burney said the board would like to have Nancy Broner, former School Board chairwoman, serve as the facilitator for the community and employee meetings. That hasn’t been finalized, nor has the fee that the facilitator would be paid, she said.

Meanwhile, the second sub-committee of board members Martha Barrett and Becki Couch prioritized a detailed list of “laser focus” academic and operational issues for the superintendent.

Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals will work on them through the end of his contract on Dec. 31. The incoming superintendent then will take up the work, Barrett said.

The first priority is improving student academic achievement in all areas as well as ensuring organizational effectiveness including the possibility of short-term contracts or consultants to fill in any administrative vacancies.

The next priority is the budget including improving communication to employees and public how the money is being used, and ensuring that funding and staffing is equitable among all schools.

Next is boosting district morale by including teachers, parents and other major stakeholders in major district decisions. They also want to improve parental involvement, and find a way for teachers to be included in the selection of students for the district’s grade recovery program.

On student discipline, they want the superintendents to work on continuing to provide overage students with an opportunity to catch up to grade level with their peers. They also want to find opportunities for student unable to work in a traditional classroom setting.

In addition, they want to ensure teachers and principals are properly trained in administering discipline and are supported in their efforts to enforce the discipline.

Couch said they will submit the priorities list to the rest of the board for review. It’s possible the board will discuss it at its next workshop, she said.

Here is the entire priority list:

I. Academic achievement

* Grade Recovery (What is the correlation between use of grade recovery and college Readiness/ FCAT)

* Intensive Reading/ Reading Proficiency (review the number of students who are repeating intensive reading for more than two years; determine if the current method is working)

* College Readiness/ Work force Readiness (how do we determine which students should be taking accelerated course work and how do we provide access to career academies), review the number of students who are taking remedial courses in college (how many students have taken rigorous courses, utilized grade recovery, intensive reading)

* Overage students (create a strategic intervention for all grade levels in all quadrants and behavior requirements to attend STAR)

* Teacher Quality (focus on content knowledge and then train on lesson planning) Review process for staffing priority and turn around schools

* Offering Rigor in every school and access to career focused courses in middle and high schools

II. Organizational Effectiveness

*Succession Planning (short term contracts or consultants)

* Evaluations for Superintendent and upper level district staff are data driven

* Communication internal and external

III. Budget

* Communication of available funds and how money is spent (create a pamphlet and materials for public consumption)

* Transparency when dealing with the board and stakeholders

* School Equity (ensure funding is equitable and positions are based off of school size and need)